I
am a casual Batman fan, cherry picking random collections based on
creative teams or the era of original issue publication. The team of
Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy was too great of a draw to resist. I
normally despise ret-cons, as they usually mean one of two things:
One, that the character(s) involved is/are so screwed up in their
current incarnation that there is no other way to tell a cohesive
story about said character(s), and/or Two, that the creative team
involved is so lazy and unimaginative that there is no other way that
they could tell a story using an established hero or villain. Batman
seems to be the victim of endless retellings and reinterpretations of
his early exploits, which serve to only further muddy the waters of
continuity.

That
said, these were enjoyable reads. Batman has more “dark” and
“mature” themes applied to him than any other mainstream
superhero, and given his origins as a derivative pulp character I can
go with the Noir angle, but only to a point. Moench is a fine writer
and Gulacy is a fine artist. Gulacy is paired with a pair of top
notch inkers in Terry Austin and Jimmy Palmiotti. The art is easy on
the eyes even if the paper in this book is shit.

The
arc found in the first five issues collected in this book is a
reinterpretation of Batman's first encounter with Doctor Hugo Strange
which occurred in Detective Comics #36 way back in 1939 (the
cover date was February, 1940, but the issue would have been on the
stands in the final days of the 1930s). Since everything is
better when it is made darker and grittier, Hugo Strange is made even
kookier than he was in his first appearance, on down to a fetish with
a manikin with a Batman costume...because, you know, story.

The
second arc collected here is the sequel, this time with the Scarecrow
in tow. I am a sucker for the Scarecrow, as scarecrows are cool as
Hell. Catwoman is also featured prominently in this arc, but the
ret-con factor totally ruins this for me. Like I said before, Moench
is a fine writer, but is he really so bored with these characters
that all's he can do is pretend that Batman doesn't know Catwoman? We
have seen so many reboots, reinterpretations and ret-cons that none
of these stories mean anything now. Cue douchebag fanboy whining,
where they say Who cares one whit about continuity so long as we
get a good story. If that's the case then nothing shown in any
story matters. Sorry kids, but continuity matters because otherwise
reading any story becomes a waste of your time. It matters or it
doesn't...and if it doesn't then I don't care.

I
loathe how Batman's narrative is done in a semi-cursive, semi-printed
fashion. It is difficult to read in the murky gray boxes, made even
murkier by the shitty paper that DC passes off on people in their
collected editions. This was an at times entertaining read, although
the aforementioned paper and lettering issues annoyed me. DC's
collected editions department remains a joke.

Junk
Food For Thought rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The
OCD zone-
This being DC, there are of course omissions. They could
have included the covers for the three previous trade paperback
releases, but instead we get one blank page and three pages of ads
for other books in the back. Marvel also advertises other books in
their collections, but they do it on the inside covers of these
books. DC's inside covers are blank.

Linework
and Color restoration: Irrelevant, since the grade of paper
used makes things a murky washed out mess of it.

Paper
stock: What year is this? Why are DC fans content to accept
subpar paper in their collected editions? This is some seriously
crappy paper. It is worse than the paper used in the original 2001
issues and makes the computer colors look washed out and muted. This
cheap paper is garbage and doesn't lower the cost of the book one
bit.

DC
lists their “Sustainable Forestry Initiative” in the indicia like
they are environmentally responsible. Please. Your entire business
model is based on killing trees. Acting like you are responsible by
using the SFI logo is laughable. You sell dead trees. The blood of
mother Earth is on your hands!

Binding:
Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock
cover notes:
Thick waxlike lamination. At least DC did that right. It was probably
a mistake.

3 comments:

Hey Kris, love the blog. I agree with you about the paper quality of this book, which is why I didn't pick it up, and your opinion of DC's collected editions in general. They've put out a few good ones, but Marvel is blowing them out of the water in that department.

As for the story itself, I just wanted to point out a few things about Prey as it's one of my favorite Batman stories ever. Legends of the Dark Knight, at least most of the arcs, was meant to inhabit the world of Batman Year One when it first premiered. The narrative is in cursive because that's what Miller used. Also, from '86-'91ish, the entire DCU was in "Year One"/retcon mode- Byrne's Superman, Perez' Wonder Woman, Hawkworld, Emerald Dawn, even Mark Waid did a Year One Flash story. It was a company-wide reboot for the most part, not the decision of any individual creative team.

Normally, I'd completely agree with you about retconning, especially origins. It's why I never really warmed up to any of Loeb/Sale's Long Halloween or other Batman stories, nor Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright, etc, and ESPECIALLY not the New 52 nonsense. But this was a story about Batman in his early years before it became the norm to do so, and I'd go easy on it. I never read the second arc so I can't speak to that one. Just my two cents.

Thank you for chiming in. I was unaware of the Year One "universe", as I am admittedly ignorant of much DC continuity. It does make more sense since you explained it to me, though. Nothing against Moench, whose writing I am a fan of.

Using cursive because of Miller...just one more thing to hate him for. Kidding! He has lost his mind but I respect what he did in the 1980s and some of his '90s work.

DC's collected edition program makes me sad, honestly. They have so much material that needs to be collected and they just let it rot. I would love for them to do an Epic-type line. Heck, those Batman Knightfall books would be an ideal size for a line. Imagine the ground that they could cover! They also need to get their Archives line out of the mothballs. Again, so much classic material waiting to be collected.

Agree on all points! Especially with regards to a DC Epic line, restarting the Archives (I'd love an All-Star Squadron Archive series), and Miller losing his mind these days. Also, I'm not sure if you're familiar with DC's Omnibuses, but they are no where near as good as Marvel's. Really thin on extras and don't even include all the material sometimes.

If you're curious, there were other stories in LotDK which were just fantastic and very much in the same vein as Prey. Most notably Venom, Blades, Tao, and Heat (not sure if that one has been reprinted though). All these stories were released amid LotDK issues 16-52.